Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics

Charles Krauthammer (Get this book)
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Krauthammer collects 30 years of his work. The author is well-known for the pungency and forcefulness with which he expresses his political views, which have led some, like the Financial Times, to rate him "the most influential columnist in America." His starting point is the reaffirmation of his commitment to politics, "the crooked timber of our communal lives [which] dominates everything because, in the end, everything--high and low and, most especially, high--lives or dies by politics." Krauthammer's autobiography emerges in chapters organized around themes like "Follies," "Man and God," "The Jewish Question, Again" and "Three Essays on America and the World." A sparkling collection that frames each of the particular contributions anew--Kirkus

The Lost Girls of Rome

Donato Carrisi (Get this book)
Multiple story lines weave a complicated web in this psychological thriller from Italian author Carrisi. Forensic analyst Sandra Vega has been a widow for just five short months when she receives a phone call insinuating that her photographer husband's death may not have been the unfortunate accident she believes it to be. Driven by photographic clues and a cryptic message he left behind, Sandra heads to Rome in search of his killer and becomes entangled with an Interpol agent who seems to cause as many problems as he solves. With a lot of separate subplots, intricate details, and twists, this novel has plenty for readers to follow, but those who can keep up will be rewarded with a satisfying conclusion.--Library Journal[

I Got Schooled: The Unlikely Story of How a Moonlighting Movie Maker Learned the Five Keys to Closing America S Education Gap

M. Night Shyamalan (Get this book)
Filmmaker Shyamalan makes his nonfiction debut with this engaging presentation of the results of his research into methods for closing America's education gap. The author begins with his visits to two Philadelphia high schools: the top-performing magnet school Masterman and its neighbor Overbrook, where only 54 percent of students got their diplomas. These differences prompted Shyamalan to begin an extensive investigation of common beliefs about the problems with American education and how they can be fixed. He interviewed experts nationwide and toured schools where leading-edge work is being done. A lively, provocative contribution from an outsider with his own way of addressing the problem.--Kirkus

Local Souls

Alan Gurganus (Get this book)
In this first work in 12 years, Gurganus offers three luscious, perceptively written pieces, each as rich as any full-length novel and together exploring the depth of our connections. The teenage girl who loses both father and virginity and takes 20 years to come full circle to the family tie that matters ("Fear Not"); the mother who's sacrificed all for a brilliant, do-gooding daughter worshipped in town even before she goes missing on a trip to Africa ("Saints Have Mothers"); and the not-quite-accepted-as-townie insurance man in an unequal relationship with the revered town doctor ("Decoy")--all are here in Falls, NC. These pieces are so fresh and real that the reader has the sense of walking through a dissolving plate-glass window straight into the lives of the characters. Highly recommended.--Library Journal

The Mountain: My Time on Everest

Ed Viesturs, David Roberts (Get this book)
The world's most widely known high-altitude mountaineer reflects on his Everest career. The author intertwines the still-gripping stories of his summits between 1987 and 2009 with a critical eye on other legendary exploits, from the great mystery of the 1924 expedition to unique challenges presented by certain routes to unexplained hoaxes through the years. In the process, Viesturs unearths some interesting tidbits that may be well-known to his community but new to laymen. The depth of feeling here and the writers' hard-earned experience elevate this volume above many other books in the popular "snow and ice" genre.--Kirkus

White Fire

Lincoln Child  (Get this book)
In searching for a topic for her thesis, Corrie Swanson, a third-year criminal justice student, finds an article about a conversation between Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle that had the famous creator of Sherlock Holmes fleeing from the room horrified. Learning that in 1876 a number of miners in the town of Roaring Fork, CO, had been attacked and eaten by a grizzly bear, Corrie travels to Roaring Fork to examine the miners' bones, but before she gets a look, the developers of the town's exclusive ski resort have her thrown in jail on trumped-up charges. Corrie did see enough to believe that the marks on the bones were made by something much more sinister than a bear. FBI Special Agent Aloysius Xingu L. Pendergast ("Two Graves") comes to her rescue and offers his help. As a series of arsons threaten to light up Roaring Fork, Corrie and Aloysius must solve the riddle of the town's past. Preston and Child have again given the readers a vibrant, thrilling, and sometimes shocking read with unexpected twists and surprises that is sure to delight--Library Journal

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

Stephen Grosz (Get this book)
A British psychoanalyst delves into his patients' stories, opening doors to larger insights. Today's medical culture emphasizes measurability, accountability and evidence-based practice, a logical approach that favors treatments "proven" effective. The results of psychoanalysis and counseling, however, aren't always so quantifiable. Understanding of our motivations, misfires and fears may come in fits and starts, and the answers may come as questions, but the insights gained can shift the course of a life. Grosz's book makes a compelling case for the continued value of this kind of therapy. Grosz has an engaging prose style, neither riddled with professional jargon nor dumbed down to connect with a wider audience. A book that challenges readers' thinking while also assuming their willingness to put some effort into drawing their own conclusions from the material.--Kirkus

Life After Life

Kate Atkinson (Get this book)
In a radical departure from her Jackson Brodie mystery series, Atkinson delivers a wildly inventive novel about Ursula Todd, born in 1910 and doomed to die and be reborn over and over again. She drowns, falls off a roof, and is beaten to death by an abusive husband but is always reborn back into the same loving family, sometimes with the knowledge that allows her to escape past poor decisions, sometimes not. Atkinson is working at the very top of her game. An audacious, thought-provoking novel from one of our most talented writers.--Booklist

Double Down: Game Change 2012

Mark Halperin, John Heilemann (Get this book)
Those hungry for political news will read "Double Down" for the scooplets and insidery glimpses it serves up about the two campaigns, and the clues it offers about the positioning already going on among Republicans and Democrats for 2016 ... The book testifies to its authors' energetic legwork and insider access ... creating a novelistic narrative that provides a you-are-there immediacy ... They succeed in taking readers interested in the backstabbing and backstage maneuvering of the 2012 campaign behind the curtains, providing a tactile ... sense of what it looked like from the inside.--The New York Times Book Review

Death of the Black-Haired Girl

Robert Stone (Get this book)
Stone's latest novel takes place on the campus of an elite college in Connecticut. The dark-haired girl of the title is Maud Stack--beautiful, talented, and hopelessly in love with her married professor, Steven Brookman, with whom she has been having an affair. His newly pregnant wife and daughter are returning from an extended trip, and Steven is looking to extricate himself from the affair and renew his connection with his family. Stone is a major literary figure, and this novel is readable, tense, and stimulating. Vivid scenes with razor-sharp dialog are plentiful; a powerful work.--Library Journal

The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business

Duff McDonald (Get this book)
In his new book, McDonald examines one of the world's most influential companies that you probably never heard of, the consulting firm of McKinsey & Company. Ranked among the top-rated consulting organizations for decades, McKinsey & Company has been a top-brass advisor to most of the Fortune 500 corporations at one time or another, though its client list has always been a well-guarded secret. This is a company that has prided itself as having the highest standards in the industry yet has contributed behind the scenes to severe cost cutting and downsizing, acted as enablers to the Enron and General Motors bankruptcies, and seen a former CEO hauled off to jail for insider trading. McDonald's reporting reveals how and why this Teflon firm has continued to thrive through the years.--Booklist

Misery Loves Company

Rene Gutteridge (Get this book)
Juliet "Jules" Belleno is a 34-year-old widow who rarely leaves her house in Wissberry, Maine, since her police officer husband, Jason, died in the line of duty. Every Tuesday, Jules reviews a book on her blog, but when she's disappointed in the latest novel by her favorite author, Patrick Reagan, and posts an unfavorable review, her life changes in unexpected ways. On the day that would've been her wedding anniversary, Jules sets out to the grocery store to buy ingredients to re-create their favorite meal. Along the way, she meets Reagan, who ultimately kidnaps her, ushering her into a nightmare where she's taken to task and forced to explain her review--and herself--to a deeply troubled man who has suffered heart-wrenching personal losses of his own.The fast-paced twists and turns of the plot present an insightful, chilling look at how privacy is often compromised in the Internet age and how choices in life can ripple beyond the scope of personal existence.--Shelf Awareness

The Baby Chase: How Surrogacy Is Transforming the American Family

Leslie Morgan Steiner (Get this book)
Even though Steiner notes that babies conceived through assisted reproductive technologies represent only an estimated one percent of all U.S. births, it is still important for the public to understand the processes. A traditional surrogate uses her own egg to conceive and carry a baby she won't raise, whereas a gestational surrogate is not biologically related to the fetus inside of her. Steiner covers all the psychological and medical complications and changing attitudes pertaining to surrogacy and shares her belief that everyone who wants a baby deserves a baby.--Booklist

Fellow Mortals

Dennis Mahoney (Get this book)
Carefully yet implacably drawing upon the theme that we are all connected, Mahoney's quietly powerful debut snapshots the lives of suburban neighbors who become bound to one another through an almost unbearably banal yet utterly real tragedy. As the characters warily orbit one another, hidden desperation, longings, and demons rear up and spark further tragedy. With the barest glimmer of hope to buoy the calamities of his deeply earnest, lyrical story, Mahoney can share shelf space with Dave Eggers and Stewart O'Nan.--Booklist

Reign of error : the hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America's public schools

Diane Ravitch (Get this book)
Education scholar Ravitch follows "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" (2010) with a well-researched and insightful critique of current efforts at public education reform. Putting the current privatization movement in the broader historical context of public school reform, Ravitch argues that there never was an ideal time when social inequities didn't fall hardest on poor and minority students. Ravitch advocates for more rigorous preschools, smaller class sizes, better teacher training, and comprehensive social services, among other initiatives, in this passionate plea to protect the nation's public schools from privatization.--Booklist

The Valley of Amazement

Amy Tan (Get this book)
Tan blends two favorite settings, Shanghai and San Francisco, in a tale that spans generations. Granted that courtesans and the places that sheltered them were (and in some places still are) culturally significant in East Asia, Tan takes what might seem an unnecessary risk by setting her latest novel in that too-familiar demimonde. Tan's story sometimes suffers from longueurs, but the occasional breathless, steamy scene evens the score: "He lifted my hips and my head soared and I lost all my senses except for the one that bound us and could not be pulled apart." A satisfyingly complete, expertly paced yarn.--Kirkus

Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism

Thomas E. Patterson (Get this book)
Patterson delivers an impressive evaluation of a crisis he identifies as just as bad, if not worse, than that associated with the "yellow journalism" of the early 1900s. The author reports on the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, which was launched in 2005 with the purpose of strengthening the education and practices of journalism. Reviving truth-based standards will not be a simple matter, writes the author. Technological change and demographic shifts each have compounding effects, and news companies are often bound by the desires and requirements of profit-driven corporate executives. A well-organized and detailed book that underlines the need for remedial policy action and effective oversight.--Kirkus

Lies You Wanted to Hear

James Whitfield Thomson (Get this book)
In this surprisingly effective debut novel (from a 67-year-old author), the story is told from two perspectives. Lucy and Matt meet on a blind date in 1979, and straight-arrow Matt, a police officer, is immediately smitten. Lucy is just coming off a bad breakup with Griffin, the love of her life who left her the day after she got an abortion at his insistence. She sees in Matt a reliable man who makes a nice contrast to her elusive ex. Thomson lays out the moral complexities underlying acrimonious divorces, taking care to make each side credible, but Lucy's plight will win the greater measure of sympathy.--Booklist

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Eric Schlosser (Get this book)
The chilling, concise history of America's precarious nuclear arsenal. Investigative journalist Schlosser's vivid and unsettling treatise spreads across a 70-year span of the development and control of nuclear weaponry. At the core of the author's scrutiny is the suspensefully narrated back story of the Arkansas-based Titan II military missile silo. A disastrous mishap in 1980 involving an accidentally punctured fuel tank caused a near-detonation and collapse of the missile, killing a young repairman and sparking an investigation into the hazardous nature of all military nuclear armaments. An exhaustive, unnerving examination of the illusory safety of atomic arms--Kirkus

Orphan Train: Novel

Christina Baker Kline (Get this book)
A long journey from home and the struggle to find it again form the heart of the intertwined stories that make up this moving novel. Foster teen Molly is performing community-service work for elderly widow Vivian, and as they go through Vivian's cluttered attic, they discover that their lives have much in common. When Vivian was a girl, she was taken to a new life on an orphan train. These trains carried children to adoptive families for 75 years, from the mid-nineteenth century to the start of the Great Depression. Kline illuminates a largely hidden chapter of American history, while portraying the coming-of-age of two resilient young women.--Booklist

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brene Brown (Get this book)
Brown exposes and challenges some of the common myths surrounding vulnerability. After more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, the author presents her findings on the concepts of shame, weakness and vulnerability. Defining vulnerability "as exposure, uncertainty, and emotional risk," the author maintains that this feeling is the crux of most of our meaningful experiences. Ultimately, she writes, it is not a weakness; everyone is vulnerable, we all need support via friends and family. Trust and vulnerability go hand in hand. A straightforward approach to revamping one's life from an expert on vulnerability.--Kirkus